


A Kiss to Build a Dream On

by Taselby



Category: Highlander: The Series
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-12-01
Updated: 2009-12-01
Packaged: 2017-10-06 22:17:05
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,832
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/58314
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Taselby/pseuds/Taselby
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Kimberly thought she was spending her birthday alone, never knowing she'd be spending it with a certain beer-loving grad student.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Kiss to Build a Dream On

****Author's note: This story got started as a joke between myself and a girlfriend (yes, her name really is Kimberly), and has now gone hopelessly out of control. I can only hope she forgives me for the liberties I have taken with her character and reputation. Forgiven or not, I'm sure she will think long and hard before she teases me again about forgetting her birthday. Happy belated birthday Kimberly!!

* * *

June 21, 7:27 pm  
Joe's Bar, Seacouver, WA

It was cool inside, dark and smoky, just the way she'd always imagined a blues bar to be. Even the neon sign out front, stating simply "Joe's," spoke of simple pleasures. This was a place to order beer and whisky, Manhattans and Salty Dogs. No... no fancy pink or green college-town discotheque drinks here. No one would dare.

Kimberly entered the dim, cavernous space slowly, not from any sense of trepidation, but rather a desire to acclimate gradually, to extend the delicious feeling of anticipation as long as possible. She delighted in the tingly thrill of new discoveries. The music was loud, but not painfully so, and while nobody danced, everyone seemed to move in time to the easy rhythm. The beat was infectious. By the time she had weaved through the sparse crowd and reached the long bar, she found her steps responding to the muted thrum of the bass guitar.

The old-fashioned wooden bar was approached with the same sense of cautious sampling, and she selected a vacant stool that was two to the left of a lively discussion. The bearded, salt-and-pepper haired bartender was watching with amused interest as a lanky young man went on about his topic with naked enthusiasm and no few hand gestures. The voices were pitched too low for her hear over the music, but Kimberly found herself intensely curious about this vital, twenty-something man.

He was not handsome in the classic sense, but there was something compelling in the spare lines of his face, in the aura of leashed power as he moved. She hopped lightly up onto the stool, disguising the sudden tremor in her hands by scrubbing her palms quickly across her denim-covered thighs. She looked up to find the bartender and his friend smiling in her direction.

"Welcome to my place. I'm Joe." His blue eyes were warm and merry. "I gotta say, we seldom see ladies as lovely as yourself unescorted," he continued in a confidential tone, "but then the gentleman's loss is our gain." The easy smile never wavered as he flirted gently, projecting harmlessness. "So, what can I get for you this evening?"

"Hmm..." she pretended to think about it, pushing a shock of curly black hair out of her eyes. "What do you recommend?"

Joe chuckled and shook his head faintly. "That depends. What do you like?"

A playful gleam danced across Kimberly's eyes, and she grinned broadly. She tossed her head in the direction of Joe's now-silent friend, and spoke very clearly. "Him."

The young man's head swiveled up from his mug of beer to stare at her with a slightly startled expression. The tops of his ears were bright pink even in the dim light from the beer signs.

Joe laughed, a warm, earthy sound that suited him. He looked to Kimberly like a man who laughed easily, always in on some private joke he seldom shared. He jerked a broad thumb toward his friend. "_Adam_?" he asked incredulously.

Kimberly nodded vigorously. "Yes, Adam. Why, is there something wrong with him I should know? Some deep, awful secret that would destroy our happiness? A family curse, a mad uncle?" She tapped a finger thoughtfully against her lips. "Oh! I know, he has some horrible wasting sickness making him prone to fits and seizures!"

Joe was trying unsuccessfully to stifle his laughter. Adam just looked nonplused. He sat with an air of waiting, patient to see where this bizarre negotiation would end.

Kimberly pushed up her small glasses and squinted seriously, raking Adam with an appraising gaze. "No, it can't be a mysterious disease, he looks _way_ too healthy from here. Is he married?" She suddenly paled, and embarrassment filled her dark eyes. "Is he _gay_?"

Adam opened his mouth to speak, but apparently thought better of it. The thin lips worked soundlessly for a moment and then shut. He slouched against the bar, telegraphing a look to Joe that clearly indicated his expectation of rescue from this situation.

It was then that the grizzled old bartender lost the last shreds of control over his laughter. He supported himself against the bar, shaking with mirth. Finally looking up at Kimberly, he wiped his eyes and struggled for breath. "No, he's not married, and he's not gay. He's... well, he's just not your type." Joe leaned in with a conspiratorial stage-whisper. "He's much too stuffy."

This, at last, elicited a cry of protest. "Hey, now that's enough!" Adam exclaimed in a richly accented baritone. He glared at the giggling pair across from him indignantly. "I am not stuffy!"

Joe ignored the baleful gaze. "So what can I get you to _drink_?" he asked her again.

"What's he drinking?"

"Draft beer," Joe replied apologetically.

"Hmm. Very noncommittal, that. Not precisely stuffy."

Adam chimed in again. "All right, enough with the stuffy remarks! I happen to like draft beer."

Kimberly smiled at the two men. "I'll have the same."

With the ease of long practice, Joe drew a large mug of foamy lager from the array of taps and slid it across the counter to her. "So did you just come here to torment Adam tonight, or is there a special occasion for you to brighten my door?"

"It's my birthday." She raised the glass is toast to herself.

"Really? Tonight?" Adam spoke up with genuine interest, apparently willing to overlook his wounded dignity.

"Hey, that's right," Joe added with sudden realization, "tonight is Adam's birthday too! I almost forgot." The steely regard Adam turned on the bartender would have made lesser men run in fear.

"Well, it's not _really_ my birthday," she clarified, pushing the unruly mop of dark curls out of her face again. "This is just the first chance I've had to celebrate, and a girlfriend recommended this place to me. So here I am." She tipped her chin and spread her hands flirtatiously at this last statement, as though her presence should speak for itself.

Her playful demeanor faded in a sudden flash of understanding. She turned serious eyes on Adam. "You weren't going to celebrate your birthday?"

He shook his head. "I seldom do anymore."

"Then the first round is on me."

* * *

Methos felt as though he were living the metaphor of the Irresistible Force and the Immovable Object, only this small, determined woman was both. She stared at him challengingly, daring him to admit his stuffiness and refuse her offer. Methos yielded the contest of wills more-or-less graciously, consoling himself with promises of dark revenge on Joseph Dawson. Damn the Watcher's memory, anyway. Methos had mentioned once, in passing, that before the adoption of a universal calendar, many villages traditionally celebrated all the birthdays of the previous year on Midsummer's Day, and that he had lived for many years with a tribe that did that. Methos' true error, however, had been in confiding that afterward, he had always thought of the Summer Solstice as his own birthday, since he could remember no other.

Methos had forgotten the entire exchange until the following June, when Joe, MacLeod, and Amanda of all people had thrown him a surprise party. That had been a night to remember, and he did. He remembered it so well that he arranged to be gone for the entire week surrounding the holiday every year since. Until now.

He smiled charmingly in his best Adam Pierson mode and took a large swallow of the celebratory beer. At least he was spared the indignity of a party.

Methos had long since learned that if you sat quietly and looked like you were listening, most people would happily fill up the silence with the sound of their own voices. Nod interestedly and insert the occasional question and you could keep them going for hours. Yes, he admitted to himself, it was a cynical attitude, but he was an old cynic. It was also true. People needed talk, and if you didn't provide it, they invariably did.

Kimberly had already thoughtfully supplied her name, her state of residence (California... gods help him, a sprout-eater), and her occupation (a student). At least she was a nursing student, not a history major. Methos doubted he could have remained sane listening to one more over-zealous history major. He was deep into his attempt to look fascinated with her assorted anecdotes when he noticed something very strange. He really was listening. She steered the talk effortlessly from topic to topic, from scathing satires of her instructors to British politics. Wonders never ceased. All thoughts of escape left him as he ordered the next round of beer.

She gestured minimally to illustrate her points, not exactly graceful, but there was an indefinable charm to her unselfconscious movement. There was a sort of relaxed awareness about her. Kimberly knew she was being observed, she just didn't care. No preening or pouting like most women, her playful flirtations seemed more designed to relax herself than to entice him. In that way she touched her confidence lightly, like the hilt of a concealed blade, and put it back away until it was needed. What, Methos wondered, would make her wave that inner steel like a sword? He moved a little closer to the edge of his stool, leaning into the conversation and the light scent of her perfume.

By closing time they had graduated to a small table against the far wall, still oiling the conversation with liberal amounts of beer. Now, at midnight, they were not exactly drunk, but neither were they precisely sober.

Over at the bar, Joe called out the obligatory "Last call," and began switching off the beer signs.

"Do we have to go now?" Kimberly asked with a note of wistful regret, a trifle unsteady as she turned to look at her companion over the rims of her glasses.

Methos nodded, only slightly more sober than she. "They're closing." He smiled again as she raked the same unruly locks from her face for the hundredth time that evening. His fingers itched to touch her hair, to smooth back the glossy length. He wanted to feel the softness of her face against his, to draw off her glasses and breathe the warm scent of her... _You have had entirely too much to drink, Old Man_, he chided himself for his random thoughts.

Her hair was tumbling over her forehead again. He would like to have bought her hair clips for her birthday gift. Or combs, yes. Silver and jade combs to keep the wild black curls from her eyes, combs like one of his wives used to wear.

He stood suddenly, pushing away the abrupt surge of memories. A sad smile, the scent of honeysuckle, but no name to attach to them. He could not remember her name, but the silver combs that held the perfumed weight of her hair, those would haunt him, conjured forth in the dark eyes of this small American woman. Methos swallowed against a rising bitterness in his mouth, and offered a hand to help Kimberly rise.

"Come on," he said gently, "let me take you home."

"On one condition," she countered. For a flickering instant, the soft loneliness in her expressive face seemed to mirror his own.

"And what might that be?"

"You can take me home... you can take me to _your_ home." Her hand was very warm where it lingered in his. His heart caught at her blatant invitation. Those dark eyes were filled with challenge and fear. _You can tell me 'no,' and it will not destroy me_, those eyes said plainly, _but I would very much like you to say 'yes.'_ Methos smiled at her boldness and determination, her simple seduction. He fought again the urge to touch her hair. Yes, he should have bought her those combs.

"All right, my place it is."

* * *

Adam's apartment was a study in contrasts. Old and new, bright and dark, pottery and crystal, computer and abacus, and books, everywhere books. Everything combined in a telling portrait of this magnetic young man she had invited herself home with. Kimberly smiled, trailing a hand along the arm of an ornate chair. She should be terrified, here, in a strange town in the home of a strange man she had only just met in a _bar,_ for God's sake. This was as unlike her normally calm, rational, practical self as if the sun had decided on a whim to rise in the north. She glanced around the flat again, reading the personality reflected in the room, and calmed herself. Confidence, strength, gentleness, calm... a willingness to take life as it was offered. She wondered if Adam realized how much he revealed in his eclectic choices.

The open, airy studio was cool, but not uncomfortably so, and smelled comfortingly of old books and... was that patchouli? She drifted over to the stereo, concealing her remaining nervousness by sifting through his CD collection. His musical tastes were as catholic as his decorating. She recognized Springsteen and Queen, Enya, The Eurythmics, and a few others, but the rest of the titles were meaningless. Kimberly selected one at random and slid it into the player.

The startling shriek of noise from the speakers made her slap one hand over an ear and grope hysterically for the off button. Adam came running from the kitchen to save her. "Sorry, I should have warned you," he laughed.

Kimberly was panting, wide-eyed from the shock. "What _was_ that noise?" She touched the speaker to steady herself.

Adam kept laughing, his hazel eyes crinkling merrily. "Um, opera, I think. A friend of mine left it here as a bad joke. I keep meaning to return it to him." He replaced the disk and scanned the shelf for another selection. "Here, I think this will be better." The stereo now produced an easy, rhythmic chant overlaid with muted synthesizer and nature sounds.

"Yes," Kimberly agreed, relief plain in her dark eyes, "that is better." She raised an arm in a reflex motion to rake her hair back, and found her wrist caught in a secure hold. She could feel the subtle imprint of each finger as he held her there. Adam's hand was very warm, and she was keenly aware of how close he was standing.

"Are you going to kiss me now?" She asked in a small voice.

"Yes." His slender hand came up to comb the shaggy black curls from her face, and Adam leaned down, eclipsing the distance between them.

"Good," she breathed before their lips met.

He smelled good. The ghosts of soap and aftershave teased at her nose, mingling with the warm essence of his skin and the lingering reminder of the earlier beers. Adam wasn't a demanding kisser, brushing softly against her lips he tested, teased, breathed gently on her cheeks until she was dizzy from holding her breath. When she impatiently tried to deepen the kiss, to accelerate the pace of events, he just pulled back, murmuring and stroking the side of her face until she calmed. And then he began again.

When at last he moved against her mouth more possessively, it was like the last restraining wall of her nervousness collapsed, and all that remained was the rising hunger that the wall had contained. Kimberly pushed Adam's hands deep into her hair and leaned into the kiss, savoring the slight unfamiliar sweetness of his mouth, the feel of his roughened chin against her own. It had been so long...

* * *

Methos gentled the kiss again carefully. There was no need to hurry through this, and the first encounter with a new lover was always special for him. Gods, though, she wasn't making it easy. Her raw enthusiasm, her unrestrained need, shot through him like an arrow. It would be easy to give in to her, and let her set the breakneck pace of their lovemaking. Didn't Americans know how to go slowly about _anything_?

He pulled back again. "Easy, there's no rush," he cautioned, chuckling, calming her again, glad to see his humor mirrored in her face. He kissed her again, quickly, and led her toward the low bed.

They undressed each other like gifts they had exchanged, marveling at each new secret revealed, every luminous detail uncovered. Methos caught his breath at the feel of her against his skin. Oh, she was sweet and soft, all feminine swells and valleys. He let his hands drift, learning the shape of her, guided only by the soft noises of pleasure and approval she made. He plucked and teased, kissed and tasted, stroking each richly sensitive inch of skin like that place alone, that curve of shoulder, that rise of breast, that swell of hip commanded all of his senses. And it did.

* * *

Kimberly was certain she was dying. No, no... She was already dead, and this was Heaven. Or Hell, the way he tormented her. She couldn't think, couldn't breathe, couldn't do anything but moan and arch and gasp under Adam's attention. She mapped the the sturdy, unusually sensitive neck, the spare contours of his shoulders, the lean muscles of his back. God, he was beautiful.

She tried to sit up, to regain some of her balance and be a more active participant. But every time she started to rise, Adam just pressed her back into the mattress with a firm hand and a gaze that commanded her stillness, and resumed kissing his way down her abdomen.

_Oh, yes_... She threaded her fingers into his short, silky hair, encouraging... And was almost completely surprised when the orgasm overtook her.

* * *

Methos caught his breath at the sight of her. She was exquisite, flushed and breathless, sweat-dampened curls clinging to her neck. She tasted like flowers. He wanted her, needed to sheath himself in her warm, welcoming body, to quell the delicious ache of his arousal in her. He wanted to hold her, and pleasure her, feel her shudder and cry out beneath him again and again. He could almost feel her small hands on his face when the moment of his release would come, almost hear her voice speaking his name, or the name she knew as his. He shook the thought away before it ovewhelmed him, turning his attention back to Kimberly.

Methos moved up to lay beside her as she recovered, caressing her face in slow circular motions, pushing the hair out of her eyes. Kimberly's breathing calmed, and she looked dazedly at him. Methos smiled, he loved pleasing women.

"Need a moment?" he inquired softly, struggling to still his own racing heart, his labored breathing.

"No," she breathed, a trace of wildness in her eyes. She looked feral, untamed... primal as she pushed him decisively over onto his back, moving over him possessively. She reminded him of a lioness guarding her prey. _My kill_, her posture seemed to declare, _mine_.

* * *

Her initial exploration of Adam's body was completed, and Kimberly moved back to the places that had elicited the deepest response in her lover. The long lines of him were a joy to touch, his skin smooth, his muscles surprisingly well-defined. Adam's neck was amazingly sensitive, she would have bet money she could make him come just from necking alone. It made her crazy to think about the possibilities in that, but she put that idea aside for later exploration. From his neck she moved on to his wrists, his nipples, the hollow of his hip, the insides of his thighs, and, yes, _there_, touching, stroking, tasting. She sampled the glorious texture of his skin, breathed the heady spiciness of his scent.

She nuzzled and kissed, pinched and licked, bit and soothed with increasing boldness, encouraged by his response. She didn't linger too long in any one place, just enough to leave him breathless and trembling with the need for more. Kimberly climbed up the length of his body, shivering, herself, from the sweet ache of arousal, anxious to complete the connection.

Adam guided her into position over him with shaking hands, forcing her to go slowly. She relented, easing downward at a leisurely pace, drawing out the delicious sense of being filled, the gentle stretching of soft places. She shifted her hips against the welcome intruder and leaned forward, both palms pressing into Adam's chest.

She loved this, to watch a lover's face as she moved, to feel him in her, under her, his arms around her, his heart racing under her hands. Kimberly could no longer distinguish which voice cried out, whose rough moan answered their movement. Adam sat up, pressing their chests together, his large hands pulling rhythmically at her bottom. His eyes were wide and dilated, sparkly hazel rims around the black core. He moved with her, urgently, guiding her hands to touch his face as he stiffened and gasped, the darkened well of his gaze never leaving hers. She ground herself down onto him, deeper, harder, as his release pushed her over the edge. Nothing mattered but this, but _him_.

Kimberly cried Adam's name once and crushed her mouth to his in a bruising kiss.

* * *

The moment passed, and still they held each other, clinging to that fading instant, drawing out the sweet trembling pleasure as long as they could. Their breathing gradually slowed, and the twinned racing of their hearts subsided. They moved apart with a moist glide of flesh and a protest of tired muscles, still kissing and touching, no longer to arouse, but to comfort and reassure.

Methos pulled Kimberly down beside him on the bed, and snuggled up alongside her to sleep. He nuzzled drowsily into her disarranged hair.

"Happy birthday."

* * *

Finis

 

A Kiss to Build a Dream On  
by Harry Ruby/Bert Kalamar &amp; Oscar Hammerstein II

Give me a kiss to build a dream on  
and my imagination will thrive upon that kiss.  
Sweetheart, I ask no more than this:  
a kiss to build a dream on.

Give me a kiss before you leave me  
and my imagination will feed my hungry heart.  
Leave me one thing before we part:  
a kiss to build a dream on.

When I'm alone with my fancies,  
I'll be with you  
weaving romances,  
making believe they're true.

Give me your lips for just a moment  
and my imagination will make that moment live.  
Give me what you alone can give:  
a kiss to build a dream on.

Ah, give me a kiss to build a dream on  
and my imagination will thrive upon that kiss.  
Sweetheart, I ask no more than this:  
a kiss to build a dream on.

  

 


End file.
